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Category: Human rights/civil liberties

Arrested. Injured. Suspended. Six NYC university students say they’ll keep protesting

Arrested. Injured. Suspended. Six NYC university students say they’ll keep protesting

NPR reports: At Columbia University, word was spreading among the student protesters who’d defied the university’s order to take down their pro-Palestinian encampment on a central lawn. Police were gathering outside the school’s locked gates. Arrests seemed imminent. It was the evening of April 30. Allie Wong, a doctoral student, was off campus when she heard what was happening. She rushed there and found a way to sneak in. Before the night was over, Wong would be one among nearly…

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Pro-Israel Jewish billionaires caught secretly plotting to crackdown student protests

Pro-Israel Jewish billionaires caught secretly plotting to crackdown student protests

Middle East Monitor reports: A group of prominent American Jewish billionaires and business leaders have been privately pressuring New York City Mayor, Eric Adams, to deploy the police against pro-Palestinian student protesters at Columbia University, and even offered to pay for private investigators to assist the New York Police Department in handling the protests, according to a report by The Washington Post. The revelations, based on a WhatsApp chat log obtained by the newspaper, shed light on the group’s efforts…

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UN says it has no more food or tents for nearly 2 million people in Gaza

UN says it has no more food or tents for nearly 2 million people in Gaza

The Guardian reports: The UN has run out of tents and food to distribute to almost 2 million people in Gaza, the majority displaced from their homes and dependent on aid to stave off looming famine. UN officials told the Guardian on Wednesday afternoon that their warehouses were now completely empty south of the river dividing the northern third of the Gaza from the south, with no likelihood of resupply as long as the main entry points into the territory…

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‘Resist the normalization of evil’: Israeli reporter Amira Hass on Palestine and journalism

‘Resist the normalization of evil’: Israeli reporter Amira Hass on Palestine and journalism

  Our guest is the Haaretz correspondent Amira Hass, the only Israeli Jewish journalist to have spent 30 years living in and reporting from Gaza and the West Bank. She is the recipient of the 2024 Columbia Journalism Award, and on Wednesday she addressed the graduating class of the Columbia Journalism School in New York City. Hass discusses the ongoing Israeli war on Gaza, why journalists should “resist the normalization of evil and injustice,” Israel’s recent censorship of Al Jazeera,…

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How the war on Gaza is shaping the 2024 elections — and the future of the Democratic Party

How the war on Gaza is shaping the 2024 elections — and the future of the Democratic Party

Samer Badawi writes: In a public park just outside Cleveland, Ohio, a small plaque marks the last stop on the Underground Railroad, the secret network that helped tens of thousands of enslaved people flee to freedom in the decades leading up to America’s Civil War. Etched into a paved walkway that leads to the water, the marker at Lakewood Park is easy to miss, a fitting emblem of a region that is nothing if not understated. Yet it was here,…

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Amnesty International: Syrian refugees face detention, torture and death on return

Amnesty International: Syrian refugees face detention, torture and death on return

The security forces in Syria have subjected Syrian refugees who returned to the country to detention, disappearance and horrific torture – including sexual violence – Amnesty International said today in a shocking new report. Amnesty’s 51-page report – You’re Going To Your Death – documents appalling human rights violations committed by Syrian intelligence officers against 66 returnees, including 13 children. Five people died in custody, while the fate of 17 forcibly disappeared people remains unknown. The report – coming against…

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This is what Bruce Robbins, a Jewish professor at Columbia, wants you to know

This is what Bruce Robbins, a Jewish professor at Columbia, wants you to know

  For over seven months, a dominant conversation in the U.S. news media has been about alleged and increased antisemitism on American campuses – culminating in the coverage around student encampments. The “Gaza solidarity encampment” at Columbia University, in particular, has received a lot of attention which sparked encampments across the country — as well as university-backed police repression and violence. In this interview, AJ+ speaks to Dr. Bruce Robbins, a Jewish professor at Columbia University who supported students protesting…

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U.S. doctor (who saved Sen. Duckworth’s life in Iraq) now trapped in Gaza, appeals to Biden to stop the war

U.S. doctor (who saved Sen. Duckworth’s life in Iraq) now trapped in Gaza, appeals to Biden to stop the war

  Democracy Now! speaks with Dr. Adam Hamawy, one of around 20 American medical workers trapped in Gaza after Israel closed the Rafah border crossing into Egypt. A plastic surgeon and Army veteran, Hamawy is on a volunteer mission with the Palestinian American Medical Association at the European Hospital in Khan Younis. Like many Gazans, the U.S. medical workers are now facing dehydration and other deadly health conditions. “We’re continuing to do our job. … It’s tiring, but this is…

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New York City’s Union Theological Seminary votes to divest from Israel’s war on Gaza

New York City’s Union Theological Seminary votes to divest from Israel’s war on Gaza

  As student protests around the world call for their educational institutions to divest from companies with ties to Israel, we speak to the Reverend Dr. Serene Jones, the president of Union Theological Seminary, an ecumenical seminary affiliated with Columbia University that is one of the first schools to begin divesting from companies that “profit from war in Palestine/Israel.” Jones says divestment is an extension of Union’s “long policy of trying our best to bring our values, our core mission…

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Israel cabinet ministers and allies say Palestinians should be ‘encouraged’ to emigrate

Israel cabinet ministers and allies say Palestinians should be ‘encouraged’ to emigrate

The Times of Israel reports: Cabinet ministers and MKs called for the rebuilding of Jewish settlements in Gaza at an ultra-nationalist march and rally attended by thousands in the town of Sderot, close to the Gaza border on Tuesday. National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir declared that the “voluntary emigration” of Palestinians from Gaza should be promoted, Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi insisted that the resettling of Gaza was the only way to ensure Israeli security, and Religious Zionism MK Zvi…

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War on Gaza: First international staff member killed in Israeli attack on UN convoy in Rafah

War on Gaza: First international staff member killed in Israeli attack on UN convoy in Rafah

  The UN confirmed its first international staff casualty in Gaza after a UN vehicle was struck in Rafah. Farhan Haq, a spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, stated during a news conference that the total number of UN staff killed in Gaza since October 7 has reached 190. Haq characterized the Rafah incident as an attack and confirmed that two individuals were in a UN-marked vehicle en route to the European Hospital as part of their duties. The UN…

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Nathan Thrall on Israel’s ‘system of domination’ and Biden pausing bomb shipment

Nathan Thrall on Israel’s ‘system of domination’ and Biden pausing bomb shipment

  Jerusalem-based journalist and author Nathan Thrall has been awarded the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction for his book, A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy. It tells the story of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank through one Palestinian father’s quest to seek answers and accountability after his 5-year-old son is involved in a deadly accident. We speak to Thrall about President Biden saying for the first time that he would not…

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Haim Saban, a ‘virulently anti-Muslim’ mega-donor, slams Biden’s decision to halt weapons shipment to Israel

Haim Saban, a ‘virulently anti-Muslim’ mega-donor, slams Biden’s decision to halt weapons shipment to Israel

The Los Angeles Times reports: Democratic mega-donor and Hollywood media mogul Haim Saban slammed President Biden’s decision to put a shipment of weapons to Israel on hold because they could be used in an offensive against a densely populated city in southern Gaza. “Let’s not forget there are more Jewish voters who care about Israel than Muslim voters who care about Hamas,” Saban wrote in an email to senior Biden aides Steve Ricchetti and Anita Dunn, Axios reported Thursday. The…

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Cornel West on Israel Hamas war, greedy ruling class and Biden vs Trump

Cornel West on Israel Hamas war, greedy ruling class and Biden vs Trump

  US Presidential candidate Dr Cornel West is a philosopher and prominent advocate for social and racial justice. He’s taught at some of the top universities in the US including Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, but has one major plan if he becomes President: to “dismantle the American empire”. The 71-year-old activist, who campaigned for Biden in 2020, has recently been vocal against both the Democratic and Republican’s party’s stance on Gaza, which he calls “morally bankrupt”. Though he faces very…

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A majority of Democratic voters believe Israel is committing genocide

A majority of Democratic voters believe Israel is committing genocide

Medhi Hasan writes: Despite President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s impassioned denials, and the self-censorship of the New York Times, almost four in 10 likely voters and more than half of all Democrats believe Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza, according to a new poll of 1,265 U.S. likely voters from Zeteo and Data For Progress, conducted from April 26 to 29. Seven months after the Oct. 7 attacks, and as the Israeli military…

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A threshold crossed: On genocidal intent and the duty to prevent genocide in Palestine

A threshold crossed: On genocidal intent and the duty to prevent genocide in Palestine

In the Journal of Genocide Research, Dr Nimer Sultany, Reader in Public Law at SOAS University of London, writes: By any measure, Israel’s onslaught on Gaza is unprecedented. Israel claims that the killing of civilians is typical of warfare. Yet by the end of November 2023 it was clear that “even a conservative reading of the casualty figures” showed that “the pace of death during Israel’s campaign has few precedents in this century.” It also showed that the proportion of…

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